Sunday, September 22, 2013

Oscar Elton Sette

The NOAA ship Oscar Elton Sette came in for a day this week. They were picking up the monk seal monitoring camps throughout the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. They usually don't have crews out on the islands during the winter months because the weather is normally stormier during that time, and emergency evacuations would be more difficult. A couple of the people from Tern Island were dropped off to fly back to Honolulu from here. I was hoping to have some time to catch up with what was going on back on Tern, but didn't get a chance to chat with the guys.

We also had a big influx of people this week. A crew came in this weekend to do some work on our taxiway at the airport. Most of the people working on the lead based paint abatement are still here too, so they'll have to make a lot more food up at the Clipper House.

The Oscar Elton Sette pulls up to the cargo pier.

A Brown noddy is trying to climb out of its egg on an old ironwood stump on Eastern Island.

There were 4 Hawaiian monk seals playing at the pier on Eastern Island as I was trying to leave the island. I didn't get a photo of all 4 at once. I had some time to take a couple of photos since I had to wait for them to get away from the boat before I started it.

The Hawaiian spinner dolphins are around fairly frequently these days.

Here was a mom and youngster (cow and calf if you want to be technically correct) jumping nearby.

For every decent dolphin photo I get I honestly have dozens of photos like this, either blurry, nothing but splashes, or just water and sky.

This is the maintenance shop at the old fuel farm. I like the "Dramatic" setting on my little Olympus camera to make some of these shots a bit more interesting.

The Clipper House still looks the same, which is the main reason I haven't shown more photos. There are very rarely over 100 people on island, so there haven't been any problems. I don't know how many they can accommodate though. We don't have a grocery store on island, so most people don't cook much, but people usually have a few frozen foods or easy to prepare foods, in case they miss a meal. The store carries a couple of things like frozen pizzas, bread, and rice, like a not very well stocked 7-11. It's got the basics though.

About Me

After high school I went into the Navy doing nuclear power stuff on a submarine. After 6 years, I left the Navy then got my biology degree from Montana State Univ. I then worked for the USDA doing human nutrition research for 8 years. I also got my Master's Degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of North Dakota. While doing that I worked for Mr. Ellie Pooh selling elephant dung paper (google it) to help the Sri Lanka elephants. After that, I did the only logical thing with my MS and moved to Cleveland, OH and got a job in security at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It was great, for a while, but I found a 1 year temporary job at Midway Atoll with the US Fish & Wildlife Service. I loved it so much that I moved to an even smaller island with only 4-15 people (Tern Island). After being the Asst Manager, then the Manager, I got the chance to go back to Midway as the Wildlife Biologist for a few more years. Just so you know, I didn't write this as an employee, I just commented about my days here and put up some photos, so these aren't the views of the FWS. I still do ocean work for the FWS, but I do it from the Headquarters office in the Washington D.C. area.